Deviation (Clone Chronicles #2)(5)
“Melanie,” I repeat, stealing another glance at the wall, but already knowing Titus won’t intervene. Not for this. It’s what he wants.
I reach out for her but stop short, unsure how or where to touch her that won’t escalate her panic. “You have to calm down,” I say.
She only jerks harder, screams louder. I squeeze my eyes shut against her screeching. Even if I say the right thing now, she won’t hear me.
“He got broken,” she says, “But he’s good, I know he is. Fix him … Fix him, please.”
“Melanie, please stop screaming,” I say when she pauses to suck in a breath.
And then just as quickly as the insanity appeared, it disappears. She stops wailing and her eyes clear and she looks directly at me. “Thank you for everything,” she says, so sincerely that for a moment I wonder which Melanie is real and which is the crazy. “See you on the other side.”
She blinks. I blink.
The moment vanishes. The crazy returns.
Her lids droop and narrow. Tears return. She shudders and strains against her bindings.
“What—?” I begin, more confused than before.
She opens her mouth as if to scream again. I can’t take it anymore. The screeching is grating on me, leaving my insides feeling like Melanie’s outsides and I can’t take another second. I reach out and grip Melanie’s shoulders in a firm grasp. She winces and her screams turn to wails.
“Melanie!” My own cry is barely heard over the racket she makes. She tries to shrink away from me but there is nowhere to go. I tighten my grip and she wails again and jerks hard—harder than before—and the chair rocks back. It tips up onto two legs and wobbles. I shift my weight, leaning to steady it, but my movement is all it needs to send the legs over the edge.
Melanie doesn’t fight it. Instead, she throws her weight toward it and tips her head back, still wailing, and the chair tips and crashes to the floor.
There is an audible crack as Melanie’s head hits the concrete floor and then she is silent. Her eyes are stuck open, glassy and unseeing, her face tipped toward the ceiling. White foam bubbles in her mouth, leaking out the edges and forming a pool on the floor that looks like regurgitated toothpaste. Her shoulders twitch and then she is completely and utterly. Still.
I have no idea whether she’s dead or unconscious and the fear of the first is almost too great to consider. My hand covers my mouth in horror and even though I feel the vibrations of my own vocal chords engaged, it feels like hours or days before my own scream reaches my ears.
The door opens, banging harshly against the wall as two guards hurry to where Melanie’s fallen. Still in the chair, her body is stuck in the sitting position, her knees pointed toward the bare bulb overhead. Titus strolls calmly behind his men. Worry is not even a blip on his expressional radar. If anything, he looks put out. He stands near the door, eyeing me disapprovingly, as if it’s my fault he’s been made to stand in such a dirty room while his men try to revive a probably dead girl whose injuries are at his hand.
“Someone check out that address,” Titus says to someone outside the open doorway. Footsteps fade and he turns back to the men hovering over Melanie. “Well?” Titus prompts. “Is she alive or not?”
“Sir,” one of the guards calls from his one-knee-to-the-floor position beside Melanie. He has two fingers pressed to Melanie’s throat below her ear. His brows are scrunched and his lips are pressed tightly together. He waits three more beats before answering, “She’s dead.”
Titus lets out some sound that reminds me of an eye roll even though I don’t see him do it. And that is enough. His sigh of frustration is all it takes for me to lose it. I turn to him and, as if in slow motion, my eyes widen to their largest points. My feet move long before I realize I’ve told them to and then I am in front of Titus, banging on his chest, screaming so loudly I can’t think or hear or feel a single thing outside of the mantra I repeat as I strike out with my nails for his eyeballs. “Monster! Monster! Monster!”
Titus jumps back but I am right there, moving with him, bludgeoning him with fisted blows to the chest, swiping at his jaw, kicking his shins. I scream and rant and cry and release all of the fear and fury I carry for him. I cannot stop. I cannot breathe. I cannot care about a single consequence or the death sentence I am giving myself every single time my body makes contact with his.
“Monster! Monster! Monster!” I continue to scream, but it sounds breathless in my own ears now.
Titus moves again, this time somehow making it into the hallway. The guards are trying to pry me away but I lash out at them and free my arm one last time. I catch Titus in the eye and rake my nail down the squishy surface. He cries out and turns away. The shock of my success gives me pause.
I swing out again but it’s too late. My distraction was the opening he needed to get his bearings.
A wiry hand closes over my throat and my scream is abruptly cut off. Titus no longer looks bored or mildly inconvenienced. He is furiously calm and fully focused on inflicting pain. His hand around my throat squeezes hard and I choke once before that sound is also silenced by the closing of my windpipe. I try to gasp but it’s no more than a muted croak. My throat burns and my mind screams in panic. It is Melanie all over again, except this time I know it won’t end until I’ve stopped breathing.
Black dots dance at the edge of my vision. I suddenly remember my limbs and swing out with my hands. Titus sinks a fist into my gut so fast, I don’t see it coming before the wind is knocked out of me. I couldn’t breathe if he let go anyway. My body convulses and goes limp and for a few agonizing seconds; the only thing holding me in place against the wall is the pressure of Titus’s hand as it squeezes away my life force.